Legal Question in Family Law in California

It depends. Joint custody does not necessarily mean 50% visitation. Child support is based on the income of both parties, and the percentage of visitation exercised by each. The state of California has a child support calculator where you can input the information for your case. Who gets the children for a deduction? For more information visit: http://www.ellifritzlaw.com/

The is a very convoluted formula in the Family Code for calculating child support. As Ms. Ellifritz mentioned, percentage of time the child(ren) spends with each parent and each parent's income are key factors. Each parent's taxes, mandatory withholdings, children from other relationships if any, daycare costs, health insurance costs, and other financial factors also play a role in the formula. So, although most commonly the higher earning parent pays support to the lower earning parent, if the higher earning parent makes 50% more money, but has three times as much physical custodial time, the parents will be said to have "joint" custody, but the lower earning parent will pay some support to the higher earning parent. Until you run the custodial time and actual financials through a program designed to calculate the formula, there is no way to tell who will pay how much support to whom.